


The One With Bisexual Ben

by olivemartini



Category: Parks and Recreation
Genre: Angst, F/M, Insecure Ben, Leslie is awesome as always, bisexual Ben Wyatt, idk - Freeform, it's finals week and I wrote this instead of stressing
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-10
Updated: 2018-12-10
Packaged: 2019-09-15 10:07:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,231
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16931271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/olivemartini/pseuds/olivemartini
Summary: He promised himself he would tell her.But the thing is, he didn't want to.  Had no past experience with saying the words out loud, because other than Chris and his parents, he had been floating through life like some human sized balloon with no permanent attachments and it just hadn't made any sense, at the time, to make a big fuss when he was convinced that it was nothing serious.  And didn't think that he was going to ever have to tell her, because he had never really experimented with it except for those few times at college and that one almost time with Chris that Ben stopped before it really got started, so it's not like there were any old ghosts from his past that were going to come forward and screw things up.But then came the campaign.





	The One With Bisexual Ben

**Author's Note:**

> this was really shitty but t's finals wee and I'm stressed and also I got a big chunk of this and the wifi cut out so I had to rewrite it, but I hope you like it anyways

He promised himself he would tell her.

But the thing is, he didn't  _want_ to.  Had no past experience with saying the words out loud, because other than Chris and his parents, he had been floating through life like some human sized balloon with no permanent attachments and it just hadn't made any sense, at the time, to make a big fuss when he was convinced that it was nothing serious.  And didn't think that he was going to ever have to tell her, because he had never really experimented with it except for those few times at college and that one almost time with Chris that Ben stopped before it really got started, so it's not like there were any old ghosts from his past that were going to come forward and screw things up.

( _Okay, well, there were a few, because he was human, but only a few.  Only one serious relationship.  The others- the others he couldn't even remember.  The others never even bothered to learn his name._ )

( _He tries not to feel bad about himself, when he looks back on his past and all he can come up with is that._ )

Anyways, it wasn't like he was going to run into his old boyfriend in the grocery store when he was on an emergency whip cream run for Leslie.  And it wasn't like the issue was ever going to come up, because he was over thirty, and he was in love with Leslie, and even though it was much too soon to be thinking permanent, life changing thoughts and the idea of life long commitment was a fear on par with his discomfort around cops, Ben was pretty sure he was going to marry her.  Nothing, even his worst anxious spirals, ever managed to dredge up a situation where the idea of him being bisexual even became an issue.

But then there was the campaign.

( _And okay, that campaign put a lot of blocks in the road before he even got to the someone-might-find-out-about-that-boyfriend-in-college (_ _and fuck that you could find these things on the internet, really) and use it as a scandal to keep Leslie from getting the conservative vote, which was like, the entire town besides the guys who frequent The Bulge.  He was too worried about them breaking up and him being sad about it, and then her campaign members quitting, and then him being her campaign manager, and then that time where a guy called her a bitch and Ben punched him in the nose, but since that last thing fizzled out to be nothing at all, the only worry that his brain managed to come up with was this- her bisexual, home town bankrupting, scandal inducing boyfriend._ )

"Listen," Andy had said, after Ben had sat out in the freezing cold backyard for two hours and April finally made Andy go check on him, and Ben had found himself blurting out the whole thing, including how he had gone to college with something to prove after Ice Town and those string of guys on the road whose names he doesn't know and how he wishes he didn't do that, and even that one time with Chris that both of them pretended never happened, until he finally got to the bit about the campaign and how he knows he needs to tell Leslie but he really, really doesn't want to.  "I may not have understood all the words you just said, but," Andy had made finger guns at him, and Ben snorted, because he's not sure why he thought that Andy would be squicked out about it.  Wasn't even sure that Andy knew what bisexual meant, even after the conversation.  "It's Leslie.  She loves you.  And she's like, the gay champion, right?"

Ben had just agreed, because he didn't want to explain the complexities of the situation to Andy.  How some people are okay with gay but aren't willing to admit that bisexuality is a real thing.  That just because Leslie is okay with guys loving guys doesn't mean she'll be okay dating a guy who has also loved a guy at one point in time.  He decided not to, and just focus on the  _Leslie loves you bit,_ which is probably the most important thing.

Which is how they got to here.

"Ben."  She wasn't touching her whipped cream.  That was how visibly upset Ben was, that she hadn't even touched the waffles he had spent three days perfecting.  "What's wrong?"

He was trying not to be squirrely.  They had had a competition, once, to see which of them had gone on the worst dates, and Leslie had one, by far, which is around the time that she told him that  _if you start acting weird around me I'll probably assume that you're about to dump me,_ so he's trying really, really hard not to be weird.

And failing.

Obviously.

"Nothing," He says, and tries for a smile, and probably would have passed off the lie if he hadn't been so nervous that his voice cracked.  "Or something.  It's about the campaign.  Your campaign," He clarifies, unnecessarily, and then gives a frustrated huff of laughter.  All Leslie does is stretched her hand across the table and smile.  "And me."

The smile disappears.

"Ben," She says, steamroller style, and he's almost scared enough to let her talk through the night about whatever conclusion she'd jumped to, but he really has to say this.  "If you're quitting, I'm going to say no, I won't allow two campaign managers to quit on me, I just won't."

Which, okay, no.  He wasn't going to.  Or maybe he should.  But she said her other campaign manager was gay.  But he thinks it's the  _bisexual boyfriend_ part that will make people turn up their noses, not  _bisexual campaign manager._ Or maybe both.  The people of this town kind of suck sometimes.

( _But not her_ , his brain adds in, sort of helpful but sort of not.   _She married boy penguins. Remember the gay penguins?_ )

"I'm not quitting."   _But maybe you should fire me,_ he thinks, and doesn't say it, because that won't make sense at this point in the conversation.  "But there is something about me, that if they find out, it might hurt your chances of winning."

"That bad?"  She's laughing.  Laughing in the way she does when she hopes something is a joke but isn't really sure.  He can tell, because if it was a real laugh she would have done it straight through the mouthful of whipped cream she had just eaten instead of waiting until she swallowed like a polite person.  "Worse than Ice Town?"

He's at the point where he could still turn back.  He would have to say something, sure, but there are plenty of embarrassing and potentially career damaging things he had done in his life.  Like when his friends took those polaroids of him passed out at a party with sharpies drawn all over his face.  Or talk about his cringey, R-rated fanfiction that he wrote back in high school, which is only slightly more terrible than the fanfiction he wrote now.  Or that he used to be a Republican.  Something, anything, so long as he didn't tell her the truth. 

But he said he was going to tell her the truth.  Promised himself that he was going to tell her the truth. Told Andy that he was going to tell her the truth, and somehow, he doesn't like to disappoint Andy.

"I dated a guy in college," He blurts out, and that really isn't how he wanted to say it, but she wasn't yelling yet, which he took as a good sign.  She wasn't actively responding to the information in any visible way, either, but, silver linings and all that.  "It was a pretty long relationship, and he wasn't like, the only one, there have been others," which, he wasn't going to tell her about them, because he doubts that the one night stands remembered him and that thing with Chris isn't even a thing, and the only person who knows about that is Andy, who he's probably going to have to bribe with giant gummy bears or something, "But he was the only serious one, in fact, he was the only serious relationship I had until I met you," And that was terrible for two reasons, really, the first being that he was admitting that he actively cared for that guy and remembered it fondly and the second that he just told her that he hadn't had a serious relationship since  _college,_ a fact he had avoided mentioning until now, "So, I guess you could say I like guys.  But I like girls, too.  Equally.  One girl.  You.  I like you."

Love you, he wanted to say, but he wasn't entirely sure she wasn't going to break up with him and he didn't want those to be his final words.

"Okay," She says, which isn't the reaction he was hoping for but not the worst, "It's okay," She repeats, and he doesn't know which one of them she is trying to convince.  "Just, why tell me now?"

 "The campaign.  I didn't think."  He swallowed, hard, and had to look up at the lights instead of her, because there was this weird burning in the back of his throat and behind his eyes.  "I didn't think it would go well, if people found out.  They dropped you to one point just for dating me, imagine if they found out I was a,"  _Faggot,_ is the word he thinks, and that's alarming because he avoids slurs of every kind and also because he hadn't thought about himself like that since those initial gay freak outs back in high school, so he just cuts the thought off.  "Newport has money.  And he wants to win.  So if he digs something up, he's going to use it. And-,"

And everyone in town will knows he's bi, and that he's dated guys, and at one point he thought that he was going to spend his life as a life partner to one.

Which is terrifying.

But they're really past that now.

"What are you saying?"

"Maybe I shouldn't be your campaign manager."  It comes out as one breath, and honestly, if he was being honest, that part would be a bit of a relief.  He was too anxious to do something like this.  "And maybe you should break up with me."

"Ben," She says, and this is not her being a steamroller, this is like the time where she told him you could never have enough whipped cream and that time he told her that he thought he wasn't attractive all rolled up into one, like that was the stupidest thing he could have said.  "I'm not breaking up with you."

"But the election-,"

"Screw the election," She says, and it's pretty close to cursing, which makes Ben somehow incapable of arguing.  "Screw the election, screw the campaign, screw Pawnee-,"

"But," And Ben doesn't know why he was arguing, but he does have her best interests at heart and wanted it to at least be said that he gave it a valiant effort.  "You've wanted this since you were a little girl."

"And now I want you.  More than anything else I've wanted in my entire life."  She sounded angry, even angrier than the time someone proposed turning Pawnees no-kill animal shelter into a yes-kill shelter to save money and she responded by putting a tax on tobacco that Ben was still sure was only a shade shy of illegal.  "And if someone has a problem with you because as something as silly as who you used to date, or that you're bisexual," He actually breathed a sigh of relief, there, that she understood that it wasn't a phase and that it was actively a part of him.  "Then they can go to hell."

It's a very definitive statement, and a very heavy declaration to make over waffles, and Ben sort of still wants to cry.  He cries a lot more than he wants to admit, but before today, he was never in any danger of crying in front of Leslie.

"And you-," He tries to make the question but it fizzles out in his throat, so he stops and tries again.  "You don't care?  It doesn't.." He doesn't know what the right word is here.  "Bother you?"

"No.  No, Ben." She is quick to reassure him, reaching across the table for him, and this is nothing like the horror stories he had been imagining.  "Never.  Nothing about you bothers me, I love you, okay?  And if there was going to be something that bothers me, it wouldn't be this."  She squeezes his hand, and at this point, Ben really is crying.  He's trying to hide it but he doesn't think he's doing a good job.  "I love every single part of you."

"Yeah?"  He doesn't know why he was so afraid. Doesn't know why he still seems to be goading her into saying that she doesn't really love him, doesn't really accept him.  Doesn't know why he ever thought that Leslie would have a problem with this.  "Promise?"

She's smiling again.  He's not crying anymore, and also fairy certain that they're not going to break up, not over this or anything else.  Like, ever.  

"Promise."

**Author's Note:**

> come find me on Instagram @olive.writes.fanfic


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